Spanner in the Works
by Jinxed-Wood
Summary: Martha Jones joins Starfleet


**Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the Beeb, Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry, all I have is my Microsoft Word.**

* * *

"It'll be easy, I promise, " the Doctor had pleaded, as they had both hung fifty seven feet in the air, over a vat of blue alien goo that was about to go boom and take most of northern Europe with it. "A breeze; you'll blend right in. They'll practically not even notice you're even there– I promise"

Martha glared at him as he used one of his hands to cross his hearts as he clung onto the iron rafter with the other. Sometimes, she really hated Gallifreyan strength; her own arms were beginning to feel like they were being pulled out of their sockets. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" she said sarcastically. "I mean, look how well _this_ trip turned out." She glared pointedly at the blue goo below them. It was beginning to glow.

The Doctor was not one to give up easily, however, and he used what Martha privately called his secret weapon – the puppy dog eyes. She could almost swear that even his hair drooped a little. "But there's no one else I can ask," he said. "Only you can do this. I need the best—"

"Uh-uh, no you don't," Martha said firmly. "I'm not falling for that line again. Why don't you bat your eyes at Jack instead?"

The Doctor shuddered. "I think one Kirk aboard the Enterprise is more than its crew can handle," he said enigmatically.

"The why don't you go yourself?"

"Uh, ah, that's quite a funny story, actually…" His voice drifted off, as he looked suddenly abashed, but there was no further explanation coming out of him.

"The answer is still no," Martha said firmly.

"But the fate of the universe is at stake!"

Martha rolled her eyes. He was resorting to the lip wobble; always a bad sign. "My knowledge of xenobiology is nowhere near good enough to pass myself off as a Doctor on a space ship," she said, but she could feel herself relenting.

So did the Doctor, evidently. "You can cram!" he said, with a wide, bright smile. "It'll be fun, we'll use diagrams!" He waggled his eyebrows, and Martha grinned, despite herself.

"How about you get us out of this mess first?" she said tartly.

**~~~*~~*~~*~~~**

_Blend in, he said_, Martha inwardly fumed as she smiled the at the Enterprise's Chief Medical officer. _They'll practically not even notice you're even there._ Now that she came to think about it, that statement alone should have sent alarms bells off in her head.

"What the hell are _you _doing here, dammit?" Doctor McCoy asked sharply.

"Sir?" she prevaricated. "I don't understand?" She tried to assume an expression of genuine puzzlement, but she'd always been a terrible liar.

"Well, let me spell it out for you, Lieutenant," he drawled, his forehead settling into a frown. "It says here, that you were transferred in from the Starfleet Technical Services Academy on Mars, by request - the thing is, I didn't make any such _request_." He looked suspiciously at the information scrolling down the transfer sheet in his hand.

"Sir," she said, noncommittally, as she tried not to hold her breath.

The Enterprise's CMO hollered over his shoulder. "Chapel! You didn't put a request in when I wasn't looking, did you?"

"Oh, stop checking the gift horse's teeth, and just give her a station," Chapel barked back. "It isn't as if we don't need the personnel."

"You've got a point," McCoy growled. "Very well, Lieutenant Jones, welcome to the Enterprise."

Martha breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir. " All that Sirring at UNIT must be beginning to rub off, she thought wryly, as she saluted. "Permission to locate my quarters, Sir," she said aloud.

Doctor McCoy looked down at her evilly. "Permission denied," he drawled. "As Nurse Chapel has already mentioned, we're a bit short handed at the moment. Let me see…" He referred to his PADD and grinned. Martha suspected it didn't bode well. "Well, lookee here. It seems we have a nice and shiny case of Andorian flu for you."

Martha's mind reeled wildly. Three weeks in cramming in the TARDIS's library filled in a lot of holes, but- "Bleeding from the eyeballs, sir?" Martha enquired weakly.

His grin grew wider. "I Hope all that Martian air bred a strong stomach, Lieutenant," he said, as her eyes followed the direction of his hand. An ominous groan came from the bed.

_I'm going to kill him, slowly_ Martha thought grimly. _And then I'll kill him again when he regenerates._"

~~~*~~*~~*~~~

Martha loved Starfleet. It was like working for UNIT without all the bad bits, and lots of shiny toys. She was working on a starship which had thirteen different species in the crew alone, and had a science and medical crew that were even geekier than _she _was.

Heaven.

The thought made her smile as she sat at the canteen table, and took a sip of her soup, before scrolling though her PADD. They were approaching the Cardassian homeworld, and Martha wanted to read up on the species' biology.

A tray slapped onto the table, and Martha looked up to see an annoyed Nyota Uhura plop onto the seat across from her.

"Long shift?" Martha asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He's insufferable!" Nyota declared.

Martha smiled wryly. "What's the Captain done now?" she asked.

"Captain? What has Kirk got to do with it?" Nyota looked genuinely surprised, and then her eyes narrowed. "Why? What have you heard?"

"Huh? Nothing! I just assumed - I mean - you've just got off your shift, and you're in a bad mood, and that usually adds up to Captain trouble..." Martha noticed that Nyota had suddenly stiffened in her chair, and looked over her shoulder. Commander Spock had just walked into the canteen. She grinned. "Well, well, well, if isn't Mr Tall, Green and Vulcan," she teased, as she turned back to look at Nyota.

"More like Mr Insufferably Superior Attitude," Nyota growled, as she ripped her bread roll apart.

Martha blinked. "You two have had a fight?" she asked.

Nyoata pursed her lips and nodded her head.

"But you two never argue," Martha protested. "Do Vulcan's even know how to argue?"

"Oh, but isn't an argument when a Vulcan fights, it's a _discussion_," Nyota bit out. "A discussion that is in reality a lecture, in which he lists all the faults in my logic, and then endeavours to correct them – at _length _"

Martha arched her eyebrows in surprise. She'd never heard Nyota show anything but respect and affection for Spock, and she was well aware of their relationship, despite their discretion. "What did he say?" she asked, curious.

"He asked me to move in with him!" she said, her voice rising querulously.

_Ah._ Martha thought. "I'm missing a good bit of this story, aren't I?" she asked aloud, as she watched Commander Spock take a few steps towards their table, twitch an eyebrow, and then turn on his heels and leave the canteen.

"Nyota's face darkened. "Insufferable!" she pronounced, getting to her feet.

Martha watched her storm out of the canteen, and smirked as she noticed Nyota turned right, rather than left - Spock's quarters. It seemed she was ready for round two.

She didn't think much of Commander Spock's chances.

~~~*~~*~~*~~~

The next day, her calendar beeped on her PADD, and it took her a moment to remember what the reminder was for. She felt a pang of regret. Today was the day that, with a bit of luck, she saved the Enterprise.

It was also the day she left Starfleet.

She rolled out of bed, and got ready for her day, checking her messages as she brushed her teeth. A reminder from Sulu that he'd booked one of the practice rooms for their sparring bout at seven, a message from Nurse Chapel, informing her that Doctor McCoy wanted her to sign in for her shift a half hour early that day, a short note from Nyota, saying she was cancelling their evening meal together, as something had come up.

She grinned at the phrasing of Nyota's message, and ruefully realised that Jack may be rubbing off on her a little too much.

Ah well, off to save the day.

She had barely made it outside her quarters, when she was knocked off her feet. Something had impacted the hull. "_Red Alert! Red Alert!_" the COM blared. "_All personnel report to their stations!_" Martha ran for the nearest elevator tube.

~~~*~~*~~*~~~

The med bay was already bursting with activity when she arrived. Injured personnel were pouring in, and the ship was still under attack, so triage was in effect.

The absence of McCoy's usually colourful and loud voice was startling, and Martha's eyes swept the room. The chief medical officer would never leave med bay in the middle of an emergency. She raised an eyebrow as she saw him huddled in the corner with Sulu. What the hell was going on? Why wasn't Sulu on the bridge?

Curiosity got the best of her, and she sidled over in their direction.

"We can't leave Jim down there," she heard Sulu say. "The Cardassians are in no mood to act reasonably."

"Maybe someone should tell our first officer that," McCoy grumbled. "At the moment, he is more concerned with protocol."

"You never know, maybe Spock will change his mind, and send a retrieval party," Sulu said.

"Yeah, right, because we _all_ know what a pushover Spock is," McCoy drawled, "Why, he practically falls over in a gentle breeze."

"The Captain once got him to back down," Sulu pointed out.

McCoy huffed. "Yeah, and you know how _that_ happened? He cheated, that's how? The _other_ Spock had given him pointers. Jim was just following directions – stirring the pot." He paused. "Actually, that's not a bad idea."

Sulu raised an eyebrow. "What, stirring the pot?"

"No, you dimwit, following directions... tell me, who, other than Kirk, is always guaranteed to get under the skin of our resident pointy eared bastard?"

"Uhura," Sulu said, without even blinking.

McCoy smirked. "Bingo!"

**~~~*~~*~~*~~~**

Two hours later, the Enterprise was warping for its life, with an injured but alive Kirk in its med bay. McCoy looked suitably smug.

Martha slid out silently, with a medical tricorder in her hand, and made her way to the engineering department. "Here, little fluffy ball," she murmured, as she ducked down and looked under engineering's control desk, "I know you're in there."

A soft purr answered, and Martha reached in. "Oh, you really are too cute, aren't you," Martha said, with a soft smile, as she stroked the tribble. "How about we remove you from the nasty big engineering room, and put you somewhere a little less likely to mess with the space time continuum." The tribble's purr grew louder, and Martha laughed as she stepped into the turbolift, noticing too late it was already occupied.

"Lieutenant Jones, you do realise that Starfleet regulation 423 stipulates all pets should be confined to quarters?" Commander Spock asked crisply. He looked, to Martha, like a dour elf with a sour lemon in his mouth, and she wondered, not for the first time, what Nyota saw in him.

"Really?" she squeaked. "Well fancy that. Sorry. It won't happen again."

"No, it most certainly will not," he said, making his words sound like a statement of fact.

Martha felt her mouth go dry, as he eyed her. "Sir, yes, Sir," she muttered, as the turbolift door opened and she stumbled out.

Bloody terrifying.

A cool voice called after her. "Please tell Chief Engineer Scott, to keep a closer eye on his pet from now on."

"Martha Jones blinked. Well, that was one mystery solved. "So that's where you came from," she said to the small furball, when the turbolift doors closed. "I should have known."

~~~*~~*~~*~~~

"Well, did you get it?" The Doctor was bouncing up and down in her quarters, the TARDIS behind him, when she entered.

"One tribble, safely captured," she said. "Although I don't know what all the fuss was about. It's such a cute little thing, and I don't see how it could have affected the Enterprise's engine room _that_ much!"

The Doctor gave her a surprised look. "The Enterprise? Whoever said anything about the Enterprise?" He caught the look on Martha's face, and faltered.

"You told me that capturing the tribble was the only way to prevent the Enterprise from being destroyed," she said, crossing her arms.

"Ah!" he said. "Well, that _is_ true...technically...just not the way you seem to think it's true… sorry,"

He didn't look at all sorry, Martha thought. "You and I are going to have words," she told him, grimly.

He pulled a face. "Is this going to be another domestic?"

"I'll show you _domestic_!" Her eyes narrowed, and he ducked back into the TARDIS. Martha stalked after him, and the TARDIS's doors closed. The Doctor's voice resounded in the room as it began to fade away.

_"Martha, what **did **you do with that furballed pest?_" A pause. "_Martha?_"

~~~*~~*~~*~~~

Commander Spock eyed the purring furball on his bedspread and noted the single white sheet of paper folded beneath it. "Lieutenant Jones has a dubious sense of humour," he murmured to himself, as he nudged the tribble out of the way, and read the note.

_**"Dear Spock,**_

**_A little tip about human women – when logic fails, a small furry animal works wonders._**

**_~ Martha_**

**_P.S. The Doctor sends his love_**.

For a moment, Spock's lips tightened into what _might_ have been construed as a smile. "Fascinating

**~~~FINIS~~~**


End file.
